A wise man once said that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Well, I had a journey of approximately five thousand miles today, and it started with me hammering my alarm clock into the bedside table as it happily informed me that 5:15am had rolled around. Not one of Nature's great preparers, I had spent the previous evening alternating between packing my suitcase and finishing the corrections to a paper that my supervisor and I were planning to submit to CHARME'01.
My supervisor's comments had been of the deadliest form; short, helpful, and requiring massive rewriting and rethinking. But, persevering, I had finished the redraft by half nine, uploaded it to the conference website and even managed to back up my hard drive (to a CD, none of this magnetic media crap) by ten. Pleased with myself, I decided on a beer and TV to relax before crashing out. Fatally, "Sex and The City" was on, and the pint of Hobgoblin slipped down smoothly so that I was in entirely the right frame of mind to appreciate the adventures of Carrie and her clan. It was past eleven by the time I realised that bed would be a good option...
I'm not enamoured of Heathrow long-term parking rates, and so had arranged to leave my car at my brother's place in Datchet, booking a taxi to take me to Heathrow T3. "Routeplanner" on my Psion had estimated an hour trip from Andover to Datchet, and I'd added half an hour of contingency. But leaving at 5:45am, what would I need that for?
Well, I started to achieve enlightenment between J6 and J5 on the M3, where yesterday's three lanes through the roadworks had gone down to one. The roads were saturated with rain, and if beforehand I had had doubts about why I was heading for warmer and drier climes, I had lost them entirely by the time I'd passed Basingstoke. Sitting in a traffic queue for fifteen minutes, I mused whimsically on the different ways of causing slow and painful death to Hampshire's chief road works officer. Anyway, eventually all the traffic squeezed painfully into one lane and we picked up speed again.
Compared to that, the M25 was almost dead, and I got to Datchet with ten minutes contingency left. Heck, that's what it was for. The taxi materialised, I left my car to the tender mercies of my little brother and headed off for Terminal 3.
Ali, the taxi driver, hailed from Kashmir and he talked about getting back to his roots next year to see his family there. Apparently it's just the Indian part of Kashmir that has all the problems; the Pakistani side which he comes from is quite peaceful. He advised me of the Heathrow taxis' somewhat steep prices. Useful information for my return journey; if I need to wait half an hour to book a taxi and await its arrival, that's well worth the £20 it would save.
Airports are rarely the most exciting places to wait, though at least Terminal 3 has things to do. I was well early so spent a productive hour writing letters and drinking latte in a cafe. It presented me with the tricky task of carrying a suitcase in one hand and a tray with a full coffee cup in the other. Half the coffee had slopped into the saucer by the time I reached a table, though I'm not proud and so simply poured it back. I held off drinking from the saucer on grounds of public decency.
Still, being in the airport removed the final bit of stress about the journey. Although not yet serene I was definitely heading away from tenseness. I was free to do what I wanted; my job had no call on my time, and no way of getting in contact. Of course there was always the possibility that I could return home to find that they'd gone bust, but you can't worry about everything. Unless you're like a certain project manager I used to know, who was headed for an early grave last time I looked; bets were split pretty evenly between a stress-induced heart attack and a bludgeoning to death by his frustrated engineers.
My bags checked in, I wandered into the Departures Lounge. Half of it was being rebuilt, so the choice of shops was a little limited. Dixons provided some spare batteries for my Psion and a disposable camera; my photographing talent being half of bugger all, getting a real camera has never seemed worth it. But it's nice to have some reminders of a holiday.
I also snarfed the second Harry Potter book, "The Chamber of Secrets". Initially I'd shied away from Ms. Rowling's writings, on the ill-founded grounds of not wanting to follow a popular trend. However a Classics graduate friend had recommended them to me, and the first one in the series had kept me entertained during two hours sitting on a train in Birmingham International. This second book was equally good, to my mind; not great literature but worth a re-read.
The call for VS019 to San Francisco was a bit late, for some reason, but I was in no particular rush. What was I going to do, fly the plane myself if it was delayed? The aircraft, a 747-400, was only half-full so it was possible to stretch out a bit and relax. Having an aisle seat helped too; six months of Tae Kwon Do had made my legs far more flexible than they used to be, but they were correspondingly more prone to complain about being cramped. No doubt my stretching drew curious looks from the other passengers. Unsurprisingly, "blood clots" were high on the list of discussion points among the passengers. But hey, I'm certain that driving on the M25 is far more hazardous.
Talking of hazards, the crew gave the statutory safety lecture. Now emergency exits, fine and sensible. But lifejackets? If we go into the Atlantic, and assuming anyone survives a 150mph impact with some rather solid water, how long will people survive in 5C water? Three minutes, if they're lucky. Climbing into a liferaft is not going to happen, trust me on this. Why not fit and demo some smoke hoods?
The in-flight movie selection wasn't as good as usual, though there was still some watchable stuff. I went for "Charlie's Angels" to start with, wolfing down a rather good veggie curry while watching it. Yes it was very silly, yes I had seen it before, but it was mindlessly entertaining, poked fun at itself, had some great action sequences and of course mesdemoiselles Barrymore, Diaz and Liu. One can't go wrong with that combination.
11am is a horrible time to fly to the West Coast, especially if you got up just after 5am. I normally set my watch to the destination time as soon as I board the plane, and force myself to believe my watch. Tricky. No way was it 3:30am; the sun just doesn't shine at that time. And curry for breakfast - even Dave Lister might balk at that. (Hot lager and croutons, anyone?)
Between movies I amused myself in figuring out a design for an Ada variable store as part of an FPGA circuit. Surprisingly compact, but writing the spec and SRPT implementation is going to be, um, "fun".
I watched "Bedazzled" (finally, a movie with Liz Hurley perfectly typecast) and "Sexy Beast" (just plain strange, though not unwatchable). [Incidentally, I've just realised that when I had seen Liz Hurley in San Francisco last year, she had been filming the meter maid scene in "Bedazzled".] Then I hit the "last couple of hours" phase of the flight; the possibilities of the entertainment system have been exhausted, so you're left to amuse yourself and try to fight off that slight hung-over feeling which long flights bring. A few more stretches seemed to help, though my body was really confused. The watch was saying that it was nearing midday, the sun was bright outside, my brain said that it was late evening after an early start, and my body didn't know what the hell was happening except that it wasn't good. Ah, jet-lag.
Luck was on my side, and on the fourth round of movies I happened across "Crime and Punishment". Apparently nominated for several awards, it probably deserved them. Something of a strange atmosphere to the film but relatively complex, and even pro-geek. Quite impressed.
We made landfall in San Francisco about 1:50pm, and by 2pm we were out of the plane and heading towards Immigration. Past memories of very long Visitors queues turned out to be pessimistic; we positively shot through INS, picked up baggage with no problems, I found the rental car shuttle and by 3pm had the keys to my Avis rental car in my hand. It was a white Pontiac Sunfire, somewhat larger than I was expecting (they keep doing this to me) but as long as I was charged the original rate, no problem.
After a year and 20,000 miles of driving my Peugeot (small, right hand drive, manual) the Sunfire was a bit of a contrast. The first few miles were done very cautiously while I adjusted back to an automatic gearbox, and got my head looking in the right places when changing lanes, but the roads were straight and not too busy. From 101 South I went west onto Route 92 towards Half Moon Bay. This road swung up into the hills, twisting around under a blue sky with herringbone clouds and a sparkling sun. I found 103.7 Star on the radio, playing solid 80's hits, and was able to settle back and enjoy the ride. The jetlag had gone into hiding now that everything else was saying "nice afternoon" to me.
Turning onto Highway 1 I stopped off at a small beach just to stretch my legs, then continued south. Santa Cruz was busy, but hitting it at 5pm what else could I expect? Once clear of the city I started looking out for places to stay. A Motel 6 caught my eye, and I turned off to find it in a reasonably pleasant setting on top of the hill. The room rate was a sight more expensive than in the Mojave last year - $42 plus tax - but the room was clean, the bed was comfortable and there was even a small pool.
The next door cinema was tempting, but the odds of me falling asleep would have been uncomfortably high. Instead I went for a wander through the strip mall and found a pizzeria, the "Round Table". I'd had a hankering for Mexican, but there's always Texas next week... I re-learned the lesson that "small" in American food sizes corresponds to "a challenge even to a hungry Adrian after a twenty mile walk".
Random observation; pedestrian crossing lights give you enough time to get about a third of the way across, at a brisk trot, before they start flashing orange at you.
Yielding to my body's demands, I was in bed by seven and wishing for sweet dreams...
Dreams were sweet indeed, and long. I woke briefly at 2am (my body clock mumbling "it's 10am, get up", though not convincingly), 5am ("you've had ten hours of sleep, get out of your pit") and finally at 7:30am when the alarm on the pickup truck parked outside went off -- three times. I half expected the BLAM of a shotgun to silence it, but the owner got there first. Guess we're not in Texas yet.
Back on Route 1, I drove south to Monterey. The sky was overcast and dropped spasmodic rain on us, so I figured it would be a good day to visit the aquarium. First, however, breakfast. A little cafe next to the car park served me latte, toasted bagel with cream cheese and a Danish. Very civilised.
While waiting for my order a couple of locals came in for their morning wake-up. The guy looked really well-dressed; bearing in mind my better half's opinion of my wardrobe (not high, and I could see her point) I thought I'd try to work out where I was going wrong. This chap had dark hair like me (though less grey) and had gone for a dark burgundy roll-neck sweater, black woollen coat left open, grey cords and black casual shoes. No idea why it worked together, but it did. The girl had gone for a black trouser suit with a while open-neck blouse, which seemed to be "business casual". Laid-back seems to be the CA dressing style.
The aquarium itself was as excellent as I remembered from last year. This time I spent a good while watching Goldie and Roscoe, the two sea otters. Roscoe was chasing his tail in the water while Goldie groomed herself on the rocks. Then feeding time came around, and the two otters floated around their pool catching the pieces of fish and squid that the aquarist(?) threw to them. Goldie came right up to the window I was watching through, twisting and diving to get her food. She was amazingly graceful, seeming to do nothing but still propelling herself through the water much faster than I've ever been able to manage..
Creepiest exhibit definitely went to the two large octopi. I don't care if they don't attack divers, I still wouldn't like to be anywhere near them without a good couple of inches of Plexiglass between us.
The large tanks were still impressive; leopard and sevengill sharks in one tank cruised around with a distinctly intimidating posture. The guide assured me that they were very well fed - mainly to prevent the tank inhabitants from snacking on one another, I guess - but you'd still have to pay me a stupendous amount of money to climb into that tank.
From Monterey I got back onto Route 1 south in time to meet some impressive foul weather. It absolutely pissed down, not to put too fine a point on it. Fortunately it cleared fairly soon, and I was able to appreciate the view as Route 1 wound down the coast. We passed Carmel, Point Lobos and its lighthouse, and saw the character of the coastline change from sandy beaches to jagged, savage rocks. The wind from the Pacific was bringing in larger nd stronger waves; dark green sea turned cyan with white foam as it hammered the rocks.
Thirty mile from Monterey was Big Sur. Not a town with a centre, this place comprised a number of clusters of houses and stores spread out along several miles of the road. I stopped at the information centre at Big Sur Station to find out what was where, and to figure out where to stay. Big Sur Lodge ended up being the place; I got a cabin in the grounds of Pfeiffer State Park. A tad expensive, but the cabin was quite nice. A large main room with a queen and two single beds, random furniture, a washbasin and a large bathroom. Not much in the way of facilities - a coffee maker, but no TV. A fridge would have been kinda useful but hey.
Once squared away I donned hiking gear (and GoreTex - the rain was still hanging around) and took the trail across Route 1 and up to Buzzards Roost. The trail weaved up a hill through massive redwoods; I could now see why people were so impressed with them. Their trunks were massive enough in diameter, but also soared straight up into the sky for what seemed like miles. They seemed to have a distinctive smell around them, which could be best described as wintergreen with a hint of mint. Anyway, I bimbled along the trail as it switchbacked up the steep hillside.
The rain had more or less fallen off now, but there was plenty of water to drip from the trees, and very low cloud as well. Views east across the valley were somewhat limited. Instead I focused on the trees and bushes around the trail, which changed from redwood to beech as I took the clockwise loop of the Buzzards Roost trail.
The top of the hill was unfortunately still very much in cloud so I couldn't see too much of the hills around, and there was no chance of seeing the Pacific. So I came down, crossed the road back to the Lodge, and took the trail up to Pfeiffer Falls. A sign on the way warned that mountain lions were in the area, and advised against hiking alone. Oh well. I relied on not tasting too good.
Pfeiffer Falls were nothing spectacular; maybe I'd been spoiled by Niagra and the Delaware Gap. The trail from there went up a mile or so to Valley Vista, which showed pretty much all of the valley around Big Sur. To the east larger hills loomed out of the cloud, promising some interesting walks if I could find a trail there.
Returning to my cabin, showering and making coffee, I looked over possibilities for tomorrow. The most promising seemed to be a 5 mile trail up to Mt. Manuel, at 3300ft quite a respectable mountain; the trailhead was only 300ft so it'd be quite a climb. I also wanted to get to Pfeiffer State Beach but thought that I'd see how the weather and time held out. There was always Sunday morning, after all.
Postcards had to be written so I sharpened my quill and thought of what to say. It always seems to be rubbing salt in the wound slightly to send friends a postcard saying, essentially, "Hi, I'm enjoying the heck out of my holiday. You're at home working. Haha!" I did not, however, feel desperately guilty writing to my brother and his fiancee who'd just moved to Italy, north of Venice.
For dinner I took a stroll down to the Lodge. Stopping off in the gift shop, I had a look for something suitable for my better half. Some obscenely cuddly toy racoons might have been the ticket, but it would have been quite a challenge to squeeze them into my baggage for the journey home. I remembered the reaction of my brother's fiancee after my brother had suggested using her toys as packing material for their house move...
In the event I didn't buy anything, although some carved wood jewellery boxes were a possibility. Instead I went for some food in the restaurant. It was a nice environment, with plain wooden tables, candles and soft surround lighting. I wondered how much of the latter was deliberate, since there was the occasional dimming of the lights and the server reminded me that California was still having massive problems with its power utilities. I'm still not entirely clear how this happened - maybe something to raise with the locals.
The home-baked bread was superb, and considerable restraint was needed to avoid eating it all. I knew how large the main course was likely to be (how the hell did the Americans get to calling the main course "entrees"?) and had been caught out by bread before. And I could no longer eat the quantities that I used to, at least not without putting on excess poundage.
The chicken was a fair size, though not excessive, and along with the accompanying runner beans and rice made a very tasty meal. In the spirit of adventure I tried a Monterey Cabernet; it was OK but I think I'll stick to French reds for the time being. Not a bad meal.
The dark roads back to my cabin were negotiated again; strangely, a path light which had gone out as I passed it on the way to the lodge went out again as I passed it on the way back. Had someone forgotten to solder an inverter onto its infra-red sensor?
By 8:30pm I was sacked out, hoping for a drier Saturday.
Those hopes were somewhat dashed when I awoke around 5am to hear the local purveyor of hail really going for it on my skylight. Resigned to a very soggy day, I rolled over and went back to sleep; the bed was very comfortable and I'm not one to fight against extra time in the sack.
At 8am, however, things had changed a little. There was still rain every now and again but its heart seemed not to be in it. I could even see what looked very like the occasional patch of blue sky through the skylight. Enthusiasm recharged, I bounded out of bed and into breakfast; banana, bagel and blueberry muffin, washed down with coffee. All the essential food groups. Packing my rucksack didn't take long, and I was out of the door before half eight.
Before charging off up the trail I checked at the Lodge to see what the weather forecast was. The best guess was "bright periods, then lots of rain this evening continuing for the next three days at least." Such a prospect redoubled my determination to get a good walk in this morning, so off I bimbled.
The Oak Ridge trail branched off early from the Pfeiffer Falls trail, leading me more or less along a contour for a mile, out of the redwoods and into miscellaneous trees. The trees were still dripping, and there was a fair amount of low cloud around, but the walk was technically rain-free so far. Eventually I reached the trail fork at 560ft where the right hand path continued the Oak Ridge trail downwards, and the left hand path pointed me up towards the 3379ft summit of Manuel Peak.
The trail switchbacked up for several zigs and zags, bringing me more or less out of the valley "bowl" in which Big Sur Lodge sits. Behind the western hills I could now see the blue Pacific. The trail then straightened and brought me slowly around to head eastwards, half way up a tall and steep incline that was the north side of a V-shaped valley channelling the Big Sur river. The valley slopes were covered by bushes and scrub; clouds of scent arose from the side of the trail. Some bushes were flowering, noticeably one small plant that looked like a clover flower but with small pink-red petals.
The trail itself was mud and gravel, and had clearly been eroded by rainfall -- whether recently I could not say. To start with it was not a problem, but in between the spurs of the valley there were places where one had to tread quite carefully.
Slowly the trail rose higher and higher, now into the cloudbase proper. The mountains on the south side of the valley were now no more than gloomy patches occasionally showing through the cloud. Overhead there were times when the sun seemed to try to break through, but never with success. By the side of the trail I started to notice little clumps of still-frozen hailstones. At the time I didn't realise what this implied for temperatures further up...
About an hour from the trail junction I came into the first clump of trees. These were clustered in an especially deep valley, and dripped on me in a friendly way as I walked under them. The trailside bushes were getting denser and started to overgrow the path; the left leg of my trousers started to get soggy. One type of bush that now appeared regularly had very very small blue flowers arranged in clumps, almost like a half-scale lavender bush.
The trail was now twisting more, and we were well into the cloud. Finally we topped a spur and headed around roughly northwest; I wondered whether this indicated the start of a slog to the top. Apparently not, for shortly thereafter the trail returned to its usual place on a steep slope, left side up and right side down.
The bushes were getting more overgrown and wetter, then we came to some more trees. These were marked by the start of snow on and around the path; not particularly deep, but snow nevertheless. Several trees had fallen across the path and it was necessary to go over or under them. Having had enough of wet legs, I stopped and changed into my thermal leggings, re-donned my walking trousers and covered them with my GoreTex overtrousers. My legs would still be wet, but at least they'd stay warm. My fleece went on too, and shortly thereafter my GoreTex top.
I was startled by the sudden appearance of a grey deer, probably a faun but quite a big one, bouncing across the trail and up the mountainside into the cloud. Further along the trail its cloven hoofprints were clear in the snow.
The trail rose to the top of a col, and I took stock of things at the base of another peak that rose in front of me. It was quite cold, and there was a fair amount of snow on the trail. I'd keep pushing up for a bit, but if no summit was forthcoming soonish then I'd turn around.
In the event another five minutes of climbing placed me on the end of a wide ridge. There was no marker indicating that this was a summit, so I continued along the reasonably clear trail. Ahead a dark shape loomed at me; as I reached it the shape became a metal rectangle, perpendicular to the ground, on a metal framework which had been sprayed in a military green and black camouflage pattern. A radar reflector for something? Anyway, the trail stretched ahead more or less on the horizontal, and there was nothing that looked like a plausible summit. I held discretion to be the better part of valour and headed back down at about 11:10am.
The walk downhill was generally uneventful, and substantially quicker than coming up. The one nasty surprise was when I was circumventing a thick bush about halfway down. The ground under my left foot gave way -- fortunately my right leg did The Right Thing and collapsed with it, slamming my knee into the ground but keeping me vertical rather than toppling me down into the gorge. A little shaken, I resolved to watch my footing more closely.
The last leg of the journey brought me out of the cloud into something that wasn't exactly sunshine but was definitely comfortably warm; moist warm air rose off the bushes around the trail. I had just reached the road in the Lodge area when the rain restarted; oblivious, I trudged back to my cabin, peeled off wet and sweaty clothes and vanished into the shower to warm up.
One thing I did spot as I walked down the Pfeiffer Falls trail was a peculiar bird with a black head, small black crest on top, grey upper body and bright blue lower body, about 20cm beak to tail. It was hopping along the ground and making a tuneless noise. Anyone any ideas?
Once warmer, fed and smelling better I took the car out and down to Pfeiffer State Beach. The guidebook warned that the road down there was windy and not suitable for large vehicles; actually, I know allegedly council-maintained roads around Andover which are less driveable. The car park was only 100 yards from the beach, and the beach itself was very impressive. A crescent of sand in a bay, it was shielded from most of the sea by two very large chunks of rock sitting around the tide line. These rocks each had holes carved right through them by the sea, and the massive Pacific rollers which came in threw spray high in the air as they roared against the rocks and through the tunnels. A grey sky couldn't reduce the power and magnificence of the waves; even when the rain came and I retreated to the car, the beach was still an impressive sight.
I took the car on a drive along the Big Sur stretch of road, looking at anything that caught my attention. Not much worth seeing, though the "Local Color" craft gallery had some interesting pieces of painting and sculpture. Returning to the Lodge, I had another look around the gift shop. This time I spotted a book on hikes in Big Sur area, and sure enough the Manuel Peak trail was there. I was very pleased to see that the summit was indeed marked by that radar reflector; apparently you could go further to a camping ground if you wanted, but I had made it to 3379ft so felt quite pleased with myself.
As a reward I had a mocha and a hot currant pastry with butter in the Lodge's cafe - very decadent. Since the rain had put the kybosh on any more walking today I had a look for any books that might be worth a read. Not much, so I retreated to my cabin in full vegetative mode.
The Lodge restaurant was too convenient, and too good, to pass up as the venue for dinner. This time I went for the roast duck and a glass of Chateau Julien from Carmel Valley. The wine was a couple of notches above yesterday's, with a very pleasant and full taste.
Crashing for the night, I heard the rain start up again...
As far as I could tell, the rain didn't let up all night. Peeking out of the window in the morning I looked onto a very, very soggy world. Hiking today was not, realistically, going to happen. After twenty years of hiking in the UK I'm as rainproofed as it gets, but there are limits. Instead I packed my gear, loaded up the car and drove back onto Highway 1 northbound.
The clouds thinned out as I neared Carmel and Monterey, blue sky appearing momentarily over the Pacific. The car was purring happily as she and I pulled around the twisting corners, cruised up the rises and slid down the steep slopes along the highway. I was finally feeling comfortable being on the wrong side of the road without a gearstick, and I think the car liked being treated reasonably gently. We weren't quite on first name terms yet, but a sound working relationship was being forged.
I pulled off into Monterey, finding the Visitor's Center but discovering that it wasn't open until 10am. Oh well; instead I drove downtown and found "Plumes" coffee bar. As I ordered (macaroon and Santa Cruz dark coffee) the barista said "Yours will be the sea otter." It was one of those things that you nod to automatically, take your macaroon and sit down, then think "What the smeg did she just say?"
Turns out that there are six coffee filling stations in a row, and each one has a picture above it; a sea otter, some yellow flowers, the Golden Gate bridge, a sunset, a merry-go-round ('carousel' to the natives) and a church spire. Ingenious, and very Californian.
The coffee bar was maybe a third full, with a reasonably diverse selection of Monterey residents. A youngish chap was sitting at the back with his Thinkpad (bet my battery life was a sight better than his), a young lady was spooning ice cream and sipping coffee, a late middle-aged couple were poring over the Sunday paper, and baseball caps seemed to be the thing for the in-and-out crowd.
Across the street I could see the "Crown and Anchor" professing to be a "British Tavern". Further up the road was "The Mucky Duck" along similar lines. Was this an expat invasion? I debated making a visit some time during my stay, if only to see how British it really was. Did they have a dartboard? Fortunately "Jamba Juice" provided some Californian balance.
The couple who had been catching up on their Sunday newspaper were about to wander off, then the guy came over and asked what I was up to. I told him, and asked him what he recommended to see and do around here; he practically ordered me down to Point Lobos, and said that I must go visit Half Moon Bay because the surf there would be absolutely stunning this time of year with this weather. I'm definitely going to make it down to the beach when I overnight there on Tuesday.
Ten o'clock fast approaching, I returned to my car. The Visitor's Center was now open so I managed to find out where the Doubletree Hotel was - literally around the corner from where I'd had coffee, as it happened - and located somewhere to park. Monterey seemed to have the parking thing well sewn up, but a car park on the edge of the town centre was only $5 for the whole day which was pretty good.
I took a stroll down to Fisherman's Wharf for a look around; the usual tourist shops, several seafood places, and a number of whale-watching boat trip organisers. I was kind of tempted, but thought I'd see how the afternoon went. As it was, the harbour was worth watching all by itself. Under the legs of the pier supporting the fish processing station lurked a posse of seal, the sound of their barking being carried across the harbour. One of them suddenly appeared much closer to me, swimming around the legs of the harbour's storm wall. He (or she, I'm not a world expert at sexing seals) was about 4-5 feet from nose to tail, with a bushy crop of whiskers. He cruised around for a while, then gracefully rolled and dived as a boat came out of the harbour.
After a while browsing in Bay Books, and miraculously escaping without buying anything, I thought I'd try the Crown and Anchor for a spot of lunch. The decor was pretty close to a standard non-chain English pub on first glance, though in fact closer scrutiny revealed a distinctly naval theme with models of several 17th and 18th century British warships, naval-themed newspaper stories, ship's bell, engine gauges etc. It wouldn't have looked at all out of place in somewhere like Portsmouth or Southampton.
A few jarring notes; the loos were signposted "Restrooms", and there were no pump handles behind the bar, but the beer and ale selection was good. I went for an E.S.B. with a BLT for food; even better, they didn't put mayo on the BLT as standard. Very civilised.
The local cinema was showing "13 Days" which sounded interesting, so I went to watch it. Now I'm not normally one to enjoy Kevin Costner but let me say, if you get the chance to watch this film then go. It covers the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I don't know exactly how accurate it is but it tells a gripping story in a way that totally focuses the audience. Superb.
I checked into the Doubletree, noticing that the ACM had apparently been successful in negotiating the lower room rate promised. The room was pretty good, and the lobby of the Doubletree was very impressive. However, I had more mundane matters to attend to, laundering some hiking clothes in the sink. If you ever want to be thankful for the invention of washing machines, this is recommended.
ACM registration opened at 6pm, and as well as the conference proceedings and a timetable we each got an FPGA'01 T-shirt. Burgundy too, just my colour. I noticed that I seemed to be the sole English representative, which was a bit worrying. Queen's in Belfast had someone, but most of the rest of the speakers were from North America; I guess unsurprisingly, given the conference location.
After a long search I finally found a Californian present for my other half; a heatable neck pillow, which you nuke for a couple of minutes then let sit on your neck and it's supposed to drain the stress away. Unusual, but it came with a glowing recommendation.
The conference reception opened at 7pm, with a buffet and beer; the latter sadly far from free ($4 for a Sam Adams, ouch.) Still, good to circulate and find out what's going on. Edinburgh had a small spectator contingent, and I also spoke to guys from Mannheim and Xilinx (San Jose).
Since I had to be up before 7am to get a transparency photocopied for my presentation, I decided to retire early, catching an X-Files episode as I got ready for bed. I also noticed on the TV that Verizon (Pacific Bell as was) is advertising SMS on its phones as the coolest new feature. Get with the program, guys, my mother has been using SMS for over a year.
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